Florida HB87 - Speedy Foreclosure Coming to Florida

[Shawn Yesner]

Florida foreclosures are about to change based on today's effective date of this new law, and I am finishing up a blog describing the intricacies of the law in a bit more detail. My personal opinion is that we've seen the end of Short Sales in Florida, that foreclosure backlogs are going to decrease, new foreclosures will speed up, and investors will have to use more "traditional" subject-to, lease-options, hard money loans, LLC, Land Trusts, etc. in order to buy FL distressed property. For those who invest in Florida, I would love to know your thoughts. Here's a to the text of the bill - http://flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2013/0087/BillText/er/PDF.

[Shawn Yesner]

Josh Randall, great question. Yes I think it will impact existing foreclosures in a few ways: (1) it reduces the statute of limitations from 5 years to 1 year effective as of July 2014 for existing cases; (2) it allows homeowner and condo associations to speed up the bank's foreclosure action using the "show cause" procedure; and (3) I think it may have "awakened" the banks that they can use the "show cause" procedure (a law that's been on the books in Florida since the 90's) to speed up foreclosures. Just last week, I received a BOA foreclosure that was filed in May, served in June, with a show cause hearing in August. Had my client failed to show, the court would have scheduled a foreclosure sale in September - a 4 month timeline start to finish!

FYI - a "Show Cause" hearing is simply a burden shifting. Instead of the bank proving why it CAN foreclose, the homeowner must prove why the bank CANNOT foreclose.

-- Shawn